#doomstalker

The Noble Fool, book one of The Hungering Saga tells the tale of Lowin. No I don't remember his last name. It's mostly moot because about halfway through the book they start calling him Noble because it's supposed to be his character trait. It's... an implied trait to say the least. He starts out working as a scribe or librarian, something distinctly non-combatant. It's even mentioned when he starts training, "Hey I've never done this shit". Well, paraphrased anyway. Along the way to his training, he gives a bit of backstory on the world, mostly about clutching a blue ball. They're attacked, he's badly hurt and the writing tanks a bit as they sort of do this bizarre looping thing with the description of it. He wakes up in his room, finds out he's something of a prisoner and you get a bit more exposition. You find out 'the bound one' his sudden girlfriend is rare since she's the opposite gender and love and love and maiwwage. Well, not so much on the last one, but Princess Bride's absurdity definitely came to mind very quickly. He heals up, starts his training with a woman named Malice (Get used to silly names folks, we've had Tempest and Silent as well). I'll give the writer a pass on the silly names, mostly because Cook likes attaching silly names to military sorts. Of course there, they don't pick the names out and they're rarely flattering, but we'll get to those books much later.

So remember how I said Lowin was a librarian? The book leads you to believe that he was too. He gets his ass thrashed, he's worn out, he's battered and he's verbally abused by Malice. He didn't succeed anywhere. Except that we find out he did and the only person that's ever done better than him was Malice in her training. She was a trained soldier before showing up. Don't let the logic snap back too hard there, you'll hurt yourself. This was the first point in the book I was legitimate frustrated. I'd gotten through the clunky intro and found something I was genuinely happy about, an unskilled main character getting his ass realistically kicked only to find out, "Oop, nevermind". Pushing that aside, he continues his training with some various abuses. He then borks Malice because she sees something in him or something... I don't know. Mist slashes his face up in frustration and he's all stitched up, then he borks the Bound Girl Kae.. Kay.. MacGuffin. There we go. That might seem unfair, but she literally exists to move the plot and does little otherwise. During this time, we find out Silent went missing as well. Finally, he finishes his training and we find out that in order for him to get his Gary Stu on, his Plot MacGuffin has to be sacrificed so her eyes can be put in his head. This is actually a decent idea with the themes of becoming a monster. Unfortunately, we don't get enough of this sort of work. He becomes embittered by the action and becomes a recluse. We'll stop here for now and move over to Dark War.

The first book in Dark War is Doomstalker and yes both names are sort of bad. We'll ignore that. The main character is Marika, a young girl in a tribe of savage... furry critters. Par the course of Glen Cook, you're given enough details to know she's not human, but not much beyond that. Pick your favorite anthropomorphic critter and call it good. We find out she's the pack leader's daughter and that males are expendable in this world. Literally, they're used as trade commodities to get them the hell out. They're presented as cowardly and stupid. This IS a plot point and one that lays dormant for a while. Marika is the sort of kid that likes to leave safety behind to explore. Again, keep an eye on that trait, it's important. She's had weird dreams of attacks coming and monsters. It's hinted she might be visited by the Sisters and taken away which is why the tribe tries to get her to hide it. The winters are getting worse and worse and they're afraid some tribes might become desperate and degenerate to cannibalism. We get a few chapters getting to know Marika and her 'brother' as well as the old lady that wants them all dead because they'll bring doom to them all.

Much like "Noble Fool" bad shit happens, starting with the elder being pushed off of a cliff and killed. Some think it was Marika, but no one can prove anything and it's just called an accident eventually. Then the camp is attacked and pretty much everyone is killed. It's given in Cook's usual, just enough detail for your mind to fill it all in with not enough detail for anyone to come up with the exact same imagery. Everyone but her is dead. She's not sure how it happened, but she goes about burying as many people as she can while looking for her brother, never finding his corpse. She's eventually picked up by the sisters where she finds out that she is in fact a power user and she makes her way to be trained.

Back in Noble Fool, Lowin's healing up from his ordeals of demi-human sacrifice and eye gouging. The place is attacked and he stumbles around, trying to get his eyes to work, finding that they're too sensitive and that he's got to keep the gauze in place leaving him very exposed. A monster shows up, then dies and he's rescued. He wakes up and talks to the new guy, Weaver. Weaver tells him it was an ambush and lots died.They're to walk down to a rally point, waaay the fuck down south beyond the borders for their kingdom. Hands up if you see the plot twist coming. All of you? Alright, hands down.

They make their way south and Lowin notices that Weaver's not as nice a guy as he seemed at first, potentially killing two randoms in a fit of rage. Honestly the guy's kind of a dick even when he's being nice. I'm.. not sure if it's intentional or not yet. Silent pops up, talking. Most people assumed he was mute, it's actually that he wasn't allowed to talk. He's called Silent because of his ability to be the scouting sort. Why he's not called Ranger, Pathfinder or something that actually hints at his specialty is up to you lot. They stop at a castle, Lowin frees a slave girl in exchange for an oath to Weaver and then they leave. They make their way further south, passing through snow fields. Lowin is suddenly alone and has to fight a super beast. He maims himself to kill it, then they chop off his arms and legs to replace them with the beast's, hence where the other knights get their animal bits from. Funny enough, it's not losing all four of his major limbs that makes him pass out though. It's when they lop off his ears and replace them that he passes out. They drag his ass along where he's deaf. No I don't know how losing your outer ears makes you deaf, just go with it. His hearing comes back and he hears exposition when he's not supposed to. He finds out they did it intentionally to test him. He bitches and moans (I still think a better name for him would have been Whiner, Cringer, Howler.. wait those last two are Glen Cook references, shit) Then he finds out, oh, Weaver's a traitor and he is too, because... um. He is. So there. He's then sent north with Brutal, (No cookies for guessing about his name) and Silent.

Over in Doomstalker, Marika is introduced to civilization. Literally. She's amazed by the buildings and technology. We're also introduced early on that some things in technology interfere with their powers. She finds out that she's one of the strongest users to come through in years. So powerful, they think she might be the reincarnation of the woman that brought the end of a great civilization. They call her various things, most of which are hurtful and Marika's quite bothered by it. She dislikes her teachers, the people around her and vows she'll change how things are done when she's able to. She'll do it without blowing them all up too! She's bright, she's hopeful and she's largely friendless except for two surviving hunters from her tribe. Her teacher dislikes her, being one of the most vocal about Marika being what amounts to the anti-christ in setting. She finishes up her training and finds out her teacher tried to kill her, taking the test too far. Marika gets her revenge and we get the start of the inherent darkness in Marika. She's by far the nicest person in the book, so watching her slide towards it is one of the key features. It's actually quite tragic watching a young girl slowly become bitter and hateful towards the people solely because she is that good.

Marika finds out that she's easily strong enough to use the flying boards and decides that's what she's going to do, she wants to fly. She wants to see the world from on high and travel the world and as such actually begins training towards that, deciding that since she wants it, she'll play nice for the time being.

Lowin begins his journey north. We get desperately needed character development for his companions after finding out his Plot MacGuffin is still alive. The boat's attacked by a Leviathan. Or a tentacle beast or something, conveniently after they talked about such beasts. Silent is lost on the ship and they begin walking north after arguing about going back. They get a ride on a ship which is also attacked, this time by the undead with a giant undead beast as their boat. It spits blue goo that melts shit. The fight then ends when they miss Brutal. No I don't know why and it's never really brought up again so far. They get to a bridge, attack it, then they meet Malice in a fight and Lowin kills Brutal because he's fucking Malice and not him. It's said it's because he trusts Malice, but I know the score.

They then make their way to the manor, sneak in, get caught, escape with the help of wisp and find out that the Plot MacGuffin was pregnant which is why she's alive. A guy's ghost bound to a bone sliver guides them out and they make their way into hiding. They build a cabin with their swords and bury the girl after she gives birth to the new plot MacGuffin, a daughter. Lowin writes about his grief and the book ends.

Marika's story ends in the first book with a ritual, bringing her into the sisterhood fully after she decides that the only way she'll get to fly is by doing so. They ritually sterilize her and we see the first moment of... things not working out like she thought they would.

As the Dark War series goes on, Marika gets more and more dumped on her. Her story is NOT at all a happy story and even when things start to look up, they almost always end up turning sideways. It's absolutely heartbreaking later in the books when you look at the bad things happening to her and how she tries to cope with it until she finally snaps and becomes the monster they kept telling her she was. This is how you do a Mary Sue if you're going to, though by the sheer amount of emotional trauma and bad things happening, it sort of breaks down the Mary Sue part of her, which is that she's absurdly powerful. She trained for it too, it's shown that she studies, that she tries her best and that she's isolated from the others. 

With Lowin, we're told one thing and another happens. We're told he's not good, then it's shown that he's one of the best. This happens over and over and is easily one of the most frustrating parts of the book. Yes he makes mistakes, yes bad things happen. Too often though, we're not given enough time with the other characters to really give a shit when they die or bad things happen. When his daughter is kidnapped in the second book, you just don't care. You don't know her. You barely know Malice and you don't know Mist. Lowin's a twit so you don't want to know him.

The book isn't terrible, but it's got too many flaws to be called good. Once again, this is a book where I think more pages would've been beneficial. More characterization, more showing and not telling. In Doomstalker, the book's not one of Cook's best though it is one of my personal favorites for it's themes. It's even lighter on description than usual and Marika CAN be a bit grating early on, largely because she's a traumatized child with super powers. She gets better as it goes along and she grows up though. Lowin... isn't showing this development.